I think this is a great move. For context, I have the Xbox consoles, but play mostly or almost exclusively on PC. I think more people can play the games, its better for the gamer and for the publisher too. Xbox has too many good franchises and games as to hold them hostage on their platform (besides PC). This is one of the best moves of Xbox in my opinion.
However, there is the other side of the coin. Because this means less incentive for gamers to buy a dedicated Xbox machine. Which first doesn’t sound bad, because you are not forced into a hardware and eco system you may not want. The implication is, that the Xbox consoles will sell less and Playstation sell more. And its already a huge difference. Sony already show that they can do what they want, publish cheap remasters and sell expensive PS5 Pro and some other stuff I am not mentioning here. This will only get worse, the weaker its competition gets.
My hope is, that Valve will take its place of Xbox and Microsoft publishes for Valve consoles (based on PC technology and software of course). However this can take a decade maybe, we need to see if Valve is interested into a home console like system and what Xbox will do with their next generation. Nintendo is doing Nintendo stuff and Playstation, well we’ll see too.
Update: Sorry, I had the wrong download links pointing to Genesis hacks. I corrected this. Sorry for messing this up. Downloads are now correctly pointing to the SNES archive…
I was surprised (and first confused) too and never saw anywhere anyone mentioning this. Maybe most people forgot about the site and was focused on the alternatives. I don’t even know when they start doing this, not sure if they made a post about it in the first place.
I consider them DLCs or updates. :D Some of them change up the original game so much and are developed with groups of people for years, that we can classify them as indie games. They just use tools and the engine of those old games and editors.
It makes no sense to cite a little part of the US DMCA law if the discussion was based on Japanese laws. If you look at www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201 , its much more complicated than one sentence. As for the DMCA, this is the next paragraph after the cited above one:
I admit not really to understand, as the language is hard to read for me. It would even be hard in my native language. Does the Japanese law have such clauses and exceptions?
But this is still to be discussed, because if the emulator does not circumvent any copy protection and the games are dumped with the protection in place, and the copy protection is reverse engineered, then the games would play with the copy protection decrypting. It does not circumvent the protection, it actively “uses” it. So from that standpoint making backup copies is not illegal in theory. Now would this hold in court? I don’t know. Nintendo does not know either and rather like to take things out of court. Because if Nintendo looses such a case, it would be devastating.
I’m in Germany too and the right to a private copy is exactly what I had in mind too. Not all copy protection measures were accepted for the right to not copy. What I mean is, there was some extremely simple protection mechanisms that were not accepted as a working and effective copy protections, and you were allowed to do a copy; even with the so called copy protection in place. Therefore it effectiveness was kind of important to the discussion too. I guess the Switch has a much more advanced one, so its probably not an exception.
It makes sense from argumentation standpoint, because Nintendo argues that there are protection mechanisms in the Switch that is illegal to ignore, in emulators. I don’t know if this is true and you don’t know either, because this was not tested in court. Nintendo never ever said that ALL emulation is illegal, which i stated in my initial reply. Otherwise Nintendo would go and take down ALL emulators. Not every kind of emulation is the same.
In example the Dolphin emulator ships with keys extracted from the console. Some say its illegal to distribute these keys, others argue keys are not copyrighted and its not illegal to share, but it was never tested in court either. If Nintendo had a case, they would definitely go against that emulator, as the keys are in the source code in the open public. Nintendo never said that Dolphin or Wii and Gamecube emulation is illegal. Or any other prior console and emulator of Nintendo systems. Nintendo console emulators exist in the public since the 90s.
Its much more nuanced than people are making or understanding. And lot of articles, like the one stated before, are plain and simple wrong and cite without context. And people who don’t understand the situation take this and believe it.
Nintendo never said that all emulation is illegal. Nintendo just does not like that their current gen is being emulated and lot of games are easily available on pirate sites for everyone. Otherwise Nintendo would have tried to shutdown emulators for previous systems too. They were especially worried about the Switch 2 being emulated easily with current emulators, as it doesn’t seen too different. I think that’s all to it.
However, there are still a number of ways that emulators can violate the law. For example, the Nintendo Switch has certain “technical restriction measures” that prevent it from playing pirated games. If a Switch emulator seeks to bypass those measures, it opens itself up to legal trouble.
Which law exactly? There are exceptions for making personal backup copies. So its not really court tested law and we don’t know if it violates the law. As the article said, these cases never went to court and we don’t have a decision by law. Nintendo did all of that out of court.
The video itself is as you say, surprisingly interesting. But to be honest, I expected that. This channel has often interesting content like this. BTW Masahiro Sakurai, the creator of Kirby and game designer of Smash Bros., had posted a video about this system too. Its very interesting watch as well: Family BASIC [Programming & Tech] by Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games
Breath of Fire 2 (SNES): I don’t know how I managed to finish this game. It’s too drawn out, didn’t have an interesting story to follow with meaningless and annoying stuff to do and the random battles was too often.
Killer Instinct (SNES): I played this game seriously, learning the combos and fighting competitive with a friend. But nowadays it just does not feel good to play.
Toshinden (PSX): Similar to Killer Instinct, I played this game seriously with a competitive friend. Playing it today, I just can’t do it.
The compatibility report says it is playable, but has some minor issues: xemu.app/titles/4d53002a/#Midtown-Madness-3 I don’t know how accurate this actually is. To search for other game titles, look here: xemu.app/#compatibility
Realistic does not equal to good looking. In example Zelda Breath of the Wild looks good, but its hardly realistic. And if all games are very realistic, then it gets a little bit boring, as all games start to look the same. The AAA gaming industry is too much focused on lip sync, realistic faces, grass and puddles. I don’t feel like getting lost in a game, but more like watching a movie. It’s so boring to me (I’m looking at you Red Dead Redemption 2).